Samsung has won a major battle in the Apple-Samsung Legal World War. On Tuesday, an appeals court in The Netherlands denied Apple's request to ban sales in Europe of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet.

The decision upholds a lower court ruling in August, in which Apple had contended that Samsung illegally copied the iPad's design. Apple had previously won a Europe-wide preliminary injunction in The Netherlands against Samsung's Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, and Ace smartphones.

'No Coincidence'

In December, a U.S. District Court also denied Apple's motion for a ban on the Tab 10.1, prior to a scheduled trial in July. A temporary ban on the Tab in Australia has expired, and a trial is scheduled in that country in March. Apple also has recently sued Samsung in Germany, seeking a ban on a variety of Samsung products, including the Tab. The German court can consider the Dutch decision in its deliberations.

Tuesday's decision in Holland said that Apple's rights to its design were relatively narrow, and that Samsung had not infringed those rights in the design for its tablet. Among other things, the judges pointed out that the iPad and the Tab 10.1 had different backs and sides, and different thicknesses.

In a statement to news media, Samsung said "this ruling again demonstrates that Apple's products simply do not warrant the intellectual protections it believes." Apple has not yet commented on the decision.

In an earlier statement, Apple had said that "it's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging."

Prior Art

Apple had sought a wider interpretation of its design rights. But the Dutch court found that there were product examples previous to the iPad, or prior art, such as a concept video produced by Knight Ridder in 1994 and a patent filed in 2004 by an inventor.

According to Florian Mueller, whose patent law blog Foss Patents follows intellectual property disputes, the U.S. decision similarly narrowed the scope of Apple's design rights.

The Dutch decision is the latest in dozens of lawsuits and countersuits in at least 10 countries between the companies over patent, design and other intellectual property issues related to smartphones and tablets.

Last month's decision in Australia similarly represented a substantial win for Samsung, which was on the verge of having to skip a Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch in that country.

That decision was considered particularly important, because it could have applied to a variety of Android-based mobile products in Australia. Mueller has noted that one of the two patents cited, related to touchscreen heuristics, is not tablet- or even device-specific. Instead, he has written, it is "very broad."

Mueller added that, if that patent is held to be infringed following the trial, no company will "be able to launch any new Android-based touchscreen product in Australia anytime soon without incurring a high risk of another interim injunction."

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